International Conciliation 

SPECIAL BULLETIN 

RACE AND NATIONALITY 






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By 

FRANZ BOAS 

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*\,V Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University 

JANUARY, 1915 


American Association for International Conciliation 
Sub'Station 84 (407 West 117th Street) 

New York City 

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The editor of Everybody*s Magazine, in which this 
article appeared in briefer form in November, 1914, 
has kindly granted permission for its repubUcation in 
this series. 




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RACE AND NATIONALITY 

HE struggle that is now devastating Europe 
has been described as an unavoidable war of 
races, as an outcome of the innate hostility 
between Teutonic, Slav, and Latin peoples, 
that can never be overcome by argument and reason, 
because it is due to deep-seated “racial instinct.” If 
this were so, we might despair of the future of man¬ 
kind ; for beyond this conflict would arise others with¬ 
out end, as wider and closer international intercourse 
develops and brings more emphatically into conscious¬ 
ness racial differences like those between Latin-Amer¬ 
ican and Anglo-American, East Indian and European, 
Mongol or Malay and European. If this view were 
correct, the so-called “racial instinct” would perpetu¬ 
ate wars of extermination until one race alone sur¬ 
vived. 

It is true that in our own political and social life 
the feeling of racial solidarity finds strong expression 
in our behavior towards Mongol and Negro. It is 
equally true that in Europe the Slavic world is moved 
to its depths by the Pan-Slavistic idea; that Germany 
has been carried far on a wave of admiration for the 
excellence of the great Teutonic race, and that England 
rests serene on the unshaken conviction of the supe¬ 
riority of the Anglo-Saxon; and yet the emotional 
value of these ideas does not make clear their rational 
values. 

The term “racial instinct” expresses the ideas that 
there are definite, insurmountable antipathies based 

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on differences of appearance, and that certain hered¬ 
itary mental characteristics belong to each type of 
man. 

In Europe, the occurrence of local types has led to 
the concept of distinct races, identified with certain 
national groups: the blond representing the Teuton; 
the heavy, darker type, the Slav; and the Mediterra¬ 
nean, the typical Spaniard or Italian. 

On account of the peculiar position of the blond 
type, it has been pre-eminently identified with the so- 
called Aryan race. As is well known, most of the lan¬ 
guages of Europe are derived from one ancient form 
of speech,—the parental Aryan language. Slavic, Teu¬ 
tonic, and Romance languages are the most important 
modern divisions of this group in Europe, to which 
Greek, Celtic, Lithuanian, and Albanian also belong. 
Among European languages, only Finnish and its rela¬ 
tives on the Baltic, Magyar, Turkish, and Basque, do 
not belong to this extended group. Aryan languages 
are spoken by people of the most diverse racial types; 
nevertheless there are scientists who try to identify 
the blond north-European with the ancient pure 
Aryan, and who claim for the race pre-eminent hered¬ 
itary gifts, because the people who at present and in 
our concept are the leaders of the world speak Aryan 
languages. 

Scientific proof of these contentions cannot be 
given. They are rather fancies of north-European 
dreamers, based on the complaisant love of the 
achievements of the blondes. No one has ever proved 
either that all the Aryans of the earliest times were 
blondes, or that people speaking other languages may 
not have been blond, too; and nobody would be able 
to show that the great achievements of mankind were 
due to blond thinkers. On the contrary, the men to 
whom we are indebted- for the basic advance of civil- 

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ization belong to the dark-complexioned human types 
of the Orient, Greece, and Italy, and not to our blond 
ancestors. 

How deep and emotional a hold this idea has in the 
minds of some scientists appears when some investi¬ 
gators try to show us that Christ cannot have been 
a Jew by descent, but must have been an Aryan. 


THE GREAT BLOND ARYAN—A FICTION 

The idea of the great blond Aryan, the leader of 
mankind, is the result of self-admiration that emo¬ 
tional thinkers have tried to sustain by imaginative 
reasoning. It has no foundation in observed fact. 
This, however, does not decrease the emotional value 
of the fiction that has taken hold of minds wherever 
the Teutonic, German, or Anglo-Saxon type—however 
it may be called—prevails. 

It is not the pre-eminence of the blonde alone that 
appeals to the fancy in northwest-European countries: 
all over Europe we find the idea of racial purity, and 
of the existence of certain features inherent in each 
race that make it superior to all others; while it is 
assumed that the mixed, “mongrel’* races are doomed 
to permanent inferiority. This notion prevails among 
ourselves with equal force, for we shake our heads 
gravely over the ominous influx of “inferior” races 
from eastern Europe. Inferior by heredity? No. 
Socially diflPerent? Yes, on account of the environ¬ 
ment in which they have lived, and therefore differ¬ 
ent from ourselves, and not easily subject to change 
provided they are allowed to cluster together indefi¬ 
nitely. Equally strong is our fear of the mongreliza- 
tion of the American people by intermixtures between 
the northwest-European and other European types. 

Scientific investigation does not countenance the 

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assumption that in any one part of Europe a people 
of pure descent or of a pure racial type is found, and 
careful inquiry has failed completely to reveal any in¬ 
feriority of mixed European types. 

TYPE AND RACE DO NOT COINCmE 

In our imagination the local racial types of Europe 
have been identified with the modern nations, and thus 
the supposed hereditary characteristics of the races 
have been confused with national characteristics. An 
identification of racial type, of language, and of na¬ 
tionality has been made, that has gained an exceed¬ 
ingly strong hold on our imagination. In vain sober 
scientific thought has remonstrated against this identi¬ 
fication; the idea is too firmly rooted. Even if it 
is true that the blond type is found at present pre¬ 
eminently among Teutonic people, it is not confined 
to them alone. Among the Finns, Poles, French, North 
Italians, not to speak of the North African Berbers 
and the Kurds of western Asia, there are many in¬ 
dividuals of this type. The heavy-set, dark East- 
European type is common to many of the Slavic peo¬ 
ples of eastern Europe, to the Germans of Austria and 
southern Germany, to the North Italians, and to the 
French of the Alps and of central France. The Medi¬ 
terranean type is spread widely over Spain, Italy, 
Greece, and the coast of Asia Minor, without regard 
to national boundaries. 

In western Europe, types are distributed in strata 
that follow one another from north to south,—in the 
north the blonde, in the center a dark, short-headed 
type, in the south the slightly built Mediterranean 
type. 

National boundaries in central Europe, on the other 
hand, run north and south: and so we find the north- 
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ern French, Belgian, Hollander, German, and Russian 
to be about the same in type and descent; the central 
French, South German, Swiss, North Italian, Austrian, 
Servian, and central Russian, to be all the same variety 
of man; and the southern French, to be closely related 
to the types of the eastern and western Mediterranean 
area. 

At the present moment the relation of German and 
Slav is of principal interest. During the period of 
Teutonic migrations, in the first few centuries of our 
era, the Slavs settled in the whole region from which 
Teutonic tribes had moved away. They occupied the 
whole of what is now eastern Germany. In the Mid¬ 
dle Ages, with the growth of the German Empire, a 
slow backward movement set in. Germans settled as 
colonists in Slavic territory, and by degrees German 
speech prevailed over the Slavic. In Germany, sur¬ 
vivals of the gradual process may be found in a few 
remote localities where Slavic speech still persists. 
As by contact with the more advanced Germans the 
cultural and economic conditions of the Slav improved, 
his resistance to Germanization became greater and 
greater,—earliest among the Czechs and Poles, later 
in the other Slavic groups. 

This process has led to the present distribution of 
languages, which expresses a fossilization of German 
colonization in the east, and illustrates in a most strik¬ 
ing way the penetration of peoples. Poland and part 
of Russia, Slavonic and Magyar territories, are in¬ 
terspersed with small German settlements, which are 
the more sparse and scattered the farther east they are 
located, the more continuous the nearep they lie to"' 
Germany. 

With the increased economic and cultural strength 
of the Slav, the German lost his ability to impose his 
mode of life upon him, and with it his power to assimi- 

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late the numerically stronger people in its own home. 
But by blood all these people, no matter what their 
speech, are the same. 

In short, there is no war of races in Europe; for in 
every single nationality concerned in the present 
struggle the various elements of the European popu¬ 
lation are represented, and arrayed against the same 
elements as grouped together in another nationality. 
The conflict has nothing whatever to do with racial 
descent. The so-called racial antipathies are feelings 
that have grown up on another basis and have been 
given a fictitious racial interpretation. 

If we deny the presence of racial contrasts, it may 
not be amiss to say a word on the fact that we may 
distinguish with more or less uncertainty individuals 
that belong to distinct nationalities. This common ex¬ 
perience might seem contradictory to what has been 
said before; but we form concept's of national types 
partly from essential elements of the form of the body, 
partly from the mannerisms of wearing hair and 
beard, and also from the characteristic expressions 
and motions of the body, which are determined not 
so much by hereditary causes as by habit. On the 
whole, the latter are more impressive than the former ; 
and among the nations that are concerned in the pres¬ 
ent struggle, no fundamental traits of the body occur 
that belong to one to the exclusion of the others. 

It is clear that the term race is only a disguise of 
the idea of nationality, which has really very, very 
little to do with racial descent; and that the passions 
that have been let loose are those of national enmities, 
not of racial antipathies. 

If community of racial descent is not the basis of 
nationality, is it community of language? 

When we glance at the national aspirations that 
have characterized a large part of the nineteenth 
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century, community of language might segn to be the 
background of national life. It touches the most sym¬ 
pathetic chords in our hearts. Italians worked for 
the overthrow of all the small local and great foreign 
interests that were opposed to the national unity of all 
Italian-speaking people. German patriots strove for 
the federation of the German-speaking people in one 
empire. The struggles in the Balkans are largely 
due to a desire for national independence according 
to the limits of speech. The Poles are longing for a 
re-establishment of their state which is to embrace 
all those of Polish tongue. 

WITHOUT THE BOND OF LANGUAGE 

Still this does not comprise the whole of national¬ 
ism, for no less ardent is the patriotism of bilingual 
Belgium and of trilingual Switzerland. Even here in 
America we see that the bond of tongue is not the 
only one. Else we should feel that there is no reason 
for a division between Canada and the United States, 
and that the political ties between western Canada and 
French Quebec must be artificial. Neither would it 
be intelligible why modern Germany should never 
have pursued the policy of unifying all German-speak¬ 
ing peoples in Europe, why she should not covet the 
large German provinces of Austria, and should pa¬ 
tiently witness the forcible Russianization of the Ger¬ 
man towns in the Baltic provinces and the Magyariza- 
tion of the Germans in Hungary. 

Neither the bonds of blood nor those of language 
alone make a nation. It is rather the community of 
emotional life that rises from our every-day habits, 
from the forms of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, 
which constitute the medium in which every individual 
can unfold freely his activities. 

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Language and nation are so often identified, because 
we feel that among a people that uses the same lan¬ 
guage every one can find the widest field for unre¬ 
stricted activity. Added to this is the powerful idea 
of political unity, which emphasizes the interests of 
the citizen as opposed to those of the foreigners. 
These beliefs combine to create a sense of national 
unity. Nevertheless it is perfectly clear that there is 
no individual, nor any group of individuals, that repre¬ 
sents the national ideal. It is rather an abstraction 
based on the current forms of thought, feeling, and 
action,—an abstraction of high emotional value, that 
is further enhanced by the consciousness of political 
power. 

is well to bear in mind that nationality is not neces¬ 
sarily based on unity of speech; for when the same 
type of cultural ideals prevails in a polyglottal area, 
in which each group is too weak to give to the in¬ 
dividual a free field of action, this can be attained only 
by the development of a union of the independent 
groups. Those who claim on a priori ground that there 
cannot be any Austrian patriotism on account of the 
polyglottal mixture that is found in the empire, might 
do well to consider that during the past seventy years 
a co-ordination of the various linguistic groups has 
slowly developed. Against the wishes of the Mon¬ 
archy, Hungary has gained its independence of Ger¬ 
man domination; and during the last few decades the 
Government of Austria itself, much against the clamor 
of the German element, has given due recognition to 
the wishes of the Slavic population. In all this we 
see the beginning of a new national life, probably the 
only one that can lead to a free unfolding of human 
activity in this region that is split up like no other 
part of Europe. 

The attitude of Italy in the present situation illus- 

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trates also that the linguistic bond is not the only 
source of national aspirations. While national unity 
of the Italian-speaking people is their avowed aim, 
those Italians who have cast their lot with Switzerland 
are willingly left to themselves. In other areas the 
ardor with which unity is sought depends upon the 
historic past. The Italians under Austrian rule ap¬ 
peal most strongly to the Italian imagination, and 
Austria is reaping her reward for long-continued op¬ 
pression. This has taken such strong hold of the 
Italian mind, that the French encroachments in the 
west, and Mazzini’s condemnation of the Third 
French Republic for not restoring the lost territory, 
seem to have been forgotten. 

For the full development of his faculties, the indi¬ 
vidual needs the widest possible field in which to live 
and act according to his modes of thought and inner 
feeling. Since, in most cases, the opportunity is given 
among a group that possesses unity of speech, we feel 
full sympathy with the intense desire to throw down 
the artificial barriers of small political units. This 
process has characterized the development of modern 
nations, and is now active in part of southeastern 
Europe. 

When, however, these limits are overstepped, and 
a fictitious racial or alleged national unit is set up 
that has no existence in actual conditions, the free 
unfolding of powers, for which we are striving, is 
liable to become an excuse for ambitious lust for 
power. When France dreamt of a union of all Latin 
people in a Pan-Latin union under her leadership, the 
legitimate limits of natural development were lost 
sight of for the sake of national ambition. If Russia 
promotes a Pan-Slavistic propaganda among the di¬ 
verse peoples, solely on the ground that the Slavs are 
linguistically related, and assumes a fictitious common 
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racial origin, the actual usefulness of the nationalistic 
idea is lost sight of, and it is made the cover for the 
desire of expansion of power. 


THE WRONG SIDE OF NATIONALISM 


There is no doubt that the idea of nationality has 
ybeen a creative force, making possible the fuller de¬ 
velopment of individual powers by widening the field 
of individual activity, and by setting definite ideals 
to large co-operating masses; but we feel with Fichte 
and Mazzini that the political power of a nation is 
important only when the national unit is the carrier 
of ideals that are of value to mankind. 

Together with the positive, creative side of nation¬ 
alism, there has developed everywhere another one, 
which forms the basis of the passions that are blinding 
the people of Europe to the high aims of humanity. 
Instead of seeing in each nation one of the members 
of mankind that contributes in its own way toward 
the advance of civilization, an aggressive intolerance 
of all other units has grown up. It is strengthened 
by the inadaptability of governmental machinery, 
which favors national isolation. 

\_ On a larger scale the conditions are repeated now 

that less than a century ago prevented the ready for¬ 
mation of modern nations. The narrow-minded local 
interests of cities and other small political units re¬ 
sisted unification or federation on account of the sup¬ 
posed conflicts between their interests and ideals and 
those of other units of comparable size. The govern¬ 
mental organization strengthened the tendency to iso¬ 
lation, and the unavoidable, ever-present desire of 
self-preservation of the existing order stood in the 
way of amalgamation. It was only after long years 
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of agitation and of bloody struggle that the larger 
idea prevailed. 

Those of us 'who recognize in the realization of 
national ideals a definite advance that has benefited 
mankind cannot fail to see that the task before us 
at the present time is a repetition of the process of 
nationalization on a larger scale; not with a view to 
levelling down all local differences, but with the 
avowed purpose of making them all subserve the same 
end. 

The federation of nations is the next necessary.step 
in the evolution of mankind. 


It is the expansion of the fundamental idea under¬ 
lying the organization of the United States, of Swit¬ 
zerland, and of Germany. The weakness of the mod¬ 
em peace movement lies in this, that it is not suffi¬ 
ciently clear and radical in its demand, for its logical 
aim cannot be an arbitration of disagreements. It 
must be the recognition of common aims of at least 
all the nations of European descent. The time is ob¬ 
viously not ripe for demanding an expansion of this 
idea over the productive members of the non-Euro¬ 
pean races of mankind. __ 

Such federation of nations is not a Utopian idea, any 
more than nationalism was a century ago. In fact, the 
whole development of mankind shows that this cond^ 
tion is destined to come. In the earliest period of so¬ 
cial development, when human beings lived in small, 
scattered groups, the unit in which community of inter¬ 
est was recognized was the small horde, and every out¬ 
sider was considered as specifically distinct and as an 
enemy who must be killed for the sake of self-preser¬ 
vation. By slow degrees the size of the horde increased 
and they formed themselves into larger units. The dis¬ 
tinction between the members of the tribe and the for¬ 
eigner was no longer considered as a specific one, al- 


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though the idea continued to prevail that it was of 
foremost interest to protect the fellow-tribesman 
gainst the foreigner. 

/ Progress has been slow, but almost steady, in the 
direction of expanding the political units from hordes 
to tribes, from tribes to small states, confederations, 
and nations. The concept of the foreigner as a spe¬ 
cifically distinct being has been so modified that we 
^ire beginning to see in him a member of mankind. 

Enlargement of circles of association, and equali¬ 
zation of rights of distinct local communities, have 
been so consistently the general tendency of human 
development, that we may look forward confidently 
to its consummation. 

It is obvious that the standards of ethical conduct 
must be quite distinct as between those who have 
grasped this ideal and those who still believe in the 
preservation of isolated nationality in opposition to 
all others. In order to form a fair judgment of the 
motives of action of the leaders of European nations 
at the present time, we should bear in mind that in all 
countries the standards of national ethics, as culti¬ 
vated by means of national education, are opposed to 
this wider view. Devotion to the nation is taught as 
the paramount duty, and it is instilled into the minds 
of the young in such a form that with it grows up 
and is perpetuated the feeling of rivalry and of hos¬ 
tility against all other nations. 

Conditions in Europe are intelligible only when we 
remember that by education patriotism is surrounded 
by a halo of sanctity, and that national self-preserva¬ 
tion is considered the first duty. 

If our public conscience is hardly strong enough to 
exact the faithful performance of the terms of a 
treaty in which only commercial interests are at stake, 
if we are restrained with some difficulty from aggres- 

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sion for the sake of economic advantage, it is at least 
intelligible why a government that sees tl\e very exist¬ 
ence of the nation endangered should, in a conflict of 
duties, reluctantly decide to set the safety of the nation 
for which it is responsible higher than the performance 
of a treaty inherited from a previous generation. 

We must acknowledge that in such a case the de¬ 
mands of national and international duty are hope¬ 
lessly at variance, and what line of action is chosen 
depends upon the conception of responsibility and 
upon the value given to the preservation of national 
existence. 


NATIONALISM IN AMERICA 

Since our own political interest in the war in 
Europe is weak, we stand naturally nearer to the 
standpoint of international morals and are inclined 
to misinterpret the motives that sway the nations at 
war. We should not deceive ourselves. It is only 
lack of immediate interest that determines our atti¬ 
tude. Owing to our more isolated position on the 
Western Hemisphere and to the great size of our 
country, we are not so much exposed to the conflicts 
between our interests, real or imaginary, and those 
of other nations. 

Still we are no less eager than the nations of 
Europe to instil the idea of the preponderance of na¬ 
tional interest over human interest into the minds of 
the young. We, too, teach rather the lessons of ag¬ 
gressive nationalism than those of national idealism, ex¬ 
pansion rather than inner development, the admiration 
of warlike, heroic deeds rather than of the object for 
which they were performed. Given a national con¬ 
flict, and the same unreasoning passions will sway our 
people that are carrying Europe to the brink of ruin. 

Those who look forward to the federation of na- 

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tions must work together to teach their ideals to the 
young, to teach that no nation has the right to impose 
its individuality upon another one, that no war is 
justifiable except for the defence of the threatened 
integrity of our ideals. 


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